Utah Senate substitutes and passes first-round base budgets, suspending three-reading rule

The Utah Senate on the floor advanced a package of first-substitute base budgets, approving the education base (first substitute Senate Bill 1) and companion agency base budgets under suspension of the three-reading requirement to permit immediate final passage.

Senator Hilliard, sponsor of the education base bill, said the substituted SB1 formalizes performance measures for line items and preserves overall spending levels while correcting allocation errors in fund-account language. "By forming by formalizing these performance metrics and targets for each, we hope that to shift our debate farther away from how much money can we spend ... to what are we buying and what is the cost," Hilliard said. He told colleagues the package appropriates about $15.1 billion from all sources for the fiscal year and roughly $6.2 billion from the general and education funds. Hilliard added subcommittees had identified approximately $800,000,000 in reductions and offsets and retained about $34,000,000 for intra-agency reallocations.

Under suspension of the rules, the Senate read the first substitute of SB1 for second and third readings and then recorded a roll-call vote. The clerk announced the first substitute had received 29 yea votes, 0 nay votes, and 0 absent. Senate members then proceeded to take up and pass related first-substitute base bills for natural resources (SB5), executive offices and criminal justice (SB6), and social services (SB7). Sponsors for those measures said they mostly preserved base funding while adding legislative intent language and budget metrics to track outcomes (SB5 sponsor remarks SEG 629–637; SB6 sponsor remarks SEG 719–726; SB7 sponsor remarks SEG 810–828).

Senator Hinkins, speaking for SB5, said the committee chose not to change base budgets but added legislative intent language requiring agencies to meet specified guidance. Senator Thatcher said SB6 continues base funding for corrections, courts, executive offices and public safety functions and noted ongoing internal reallocations under consideration. For SB7, Senator Christensen said the Department of Human Services requested three reductions be taken in the 2017 session rather than 2018, and the substitute incorporated those changes.

The floor proceedings used the rules suspension explicitly allowed under the Constitution to expedite action on these base budget bills before a procedural deadline, and senators repeatedly invoked the suspension to allow immediate second and third readings followed by final passage votes.

Next steps: the Senate substituted, debated and voted on the base budgets on the floor; sponsors said the Legislature will continue budget decisions and growth-related funding choices in upcoming weeks.